


perfect view

by calvinahobbes



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: M/M, Marriage Proposal, japhan 2.0
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-18 14:34:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29491374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calvinahobbes/pseuds/calvinahobbes
Summary: His knee feels weird. That’s weird, right? Surely that’s not a thing. He was only down there for a couple of seconds, in the gloom of the Japanese night, perfect view of lights and water behind them.
Relationships: Dan Howell/Phil Lester
Comments: 15
Kudos: 98





	perfect view

**Author's Note:**

> Keelin is a bully >:( Thanks to Jude for looking this over <3

It’s been a perfect day. They have a thousand photos on their phones to prove it. This holiday has been everything Phil hoped it would be and more.

He’s staring out of their hotel window now, listening to Dan pottering about in the room behind him. He’s pacing a bit. Phil notices a mumble, but he’s too full up to pay it any close attention.

His knee feels weird. That’s weird, right? Surely that’s not a thing. He was only down there for a couple of seconds, in the gloom of the Japanese night, perfect view of lights and water behind them. 

He’d practiced what to say, run it over it in his mind thousands of times, and when the time came he was almost able to get it all out. His heart thumps faster again at the memory. So stupid, to somehow be nervous when he’s known now for almost a decade that this time would eventually come. He’s known it, and they’ve talked about it, and surely on some level Dan knew to expect it. But still Phil was nervous, and still Dan looked like Phil had reached up and plucked the fucking moon out of the sky for him.

His hands shake with the memory of slipping the ring on Dan’s finger, Dan gasping wetly and studying it as if he’s never seen it before, even though of course he picked it out years ago and sent Phil a not so subtle email - just the link, no commentary, no subject. (Phil still has it. Of course he does.)

“Phil.” 

He’s heard Dan approach, but only in that absent way where he always knows where Dan is in the room. Phil hums when Dan runs a hand over his shoulders, and he turns into the touch, already closing his eyes and tipping his head up for a kiss.

But Dan falls down. He drops away and Phil reaches to catch him, but then Dan is kneeling in front of him, and the room seems to be spinning.

“What’s happening?” Phil asks, feeling stupid and slow with confusion.

“Phil,” Dan says again, looking up at him with shiny dark eyes. He’s holding up a small velvet box.

Phil’s head spins. He gasps and belatedly tries to hide it behind his hands. 

“I know we always joked you’d be the one asking,” Dan is saying, calm voice still vibrating with emotion. “But we’re gay; we make our own rules, right?”

There are tears in Phil’s eyes, his throat is constricting, and Dan hasn’t even properly started yet.

“Philip Michael Lester. You’re my best friend,” Dan says.

“Stop,” Phil says, mouth twisting, breath damp in the cup of his palms. The sound is oddly distorted.

Dan laughs but otherwise ignores him. “Will you spend the rest of your life with me, and be my husband?”

Phil stares into Dan’s face, that stupid lovely face he’s seen in countless situations, familiar and new, but never this one before. He stares at Dan, the city lights stretching out behind him, and thinks of stealing surreptitious glances for the first time, a different city view behind him then, and wondering... what if...

And suddenly he can’t see anything. Dan is just a blur and his cheeks are hot, and then the blur that is Dan is springing to his feet, laughing at him again and reaching out to wipe his eyes, and Phil’s head is still spinning so he clings, awkwardly, with no sense of where his limbs are or how to control them, and Dan just laughs some more and pulls him in and rocks him, tipping their bodies so their feet leave the ground, first Phil’s right foot, then his left foot. 

“Yes,” he says after surely hours have passed. His face is mashed into Dan’s neck, and there are salty tears in his mouth and his nose is running and Dan is probably feeling pretty gross, but he’s just holding Phil, arms close and warm around him. 

“Yes,” he says again, and this time Dan seems to hear him because he pulls away enough to look at Phil’s face, soft sweet smile there only for Phil.

He reaches behind him and suddenly the ring box appears again. Dan lets go, looking at Phil like he’s afraid he might collapse, which... is actually quite likely. 

“It’s just that one you said you liked last Christmas,” Dan says and opens the box with his other hand. “We can get it exchanged if you don’t—“

“I want this one,” Phil cuts him off.

He stares at it as Dan picks it out of the box, the simple band he’d jokingly picked out while they were browsing jewelry during a late night online shopping spree, curled up on the couch and warm. Dan takes his hand and slips it on, the band on his own finger so new and odd-looking. Phil’s throat aches, his eyes are burning, his hand is vibrating even though Dan is clutching it so, so hard in his own sweaty one.

“We’re a mess,” Dan says and wipes first his own eyes, then Phil’s again. He mostly just succeeds in smearing snot and tears everywhere, but Phil doesn’t care.

“You’re evil,” Phil says and butts his forehead against Dan’s chest. 

“Hey. I am a god tier fiancé,” Dan says and wraps him in another hug.

Phil sighs and rests there. 

He always expected to be the one to ask, and so that’s what he did. They’ve had so many conversations through the years; about the meaning of marriage, the (possible) significance of a wedding, the political implications, the personal... And they’ve joked about the situation a thousand times; Phil popping the question in various likely and unlikely scenarios. But it’s always been him, the asker but not the askee. Because he’s oldest? Because the implication is that Dan’s more of a romantic? And yet now he’s realizing that some part of him has always wanted this as well, that he had dreamed for years of being loved the way Dan loves him. 

He turns them, stares out at the city lights again.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. [Like/reblog on tumblr.](https://calvinahobbes.tumblr.com/post/643295830392111104)


End file.
